Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, 22, court awarded him the death verdict on five counts on Thursday. He has also been given a life period on five counts. Kasab has been found guilty of murdering seven citizens, helping murder 159 others and waging war against India through a 62-hour siege beginning November 26, 2008.
While announcing the verdict, the judge M L Tahiliyani said words could not explain the cruelty of the 26/11 attack. "This man has lost the right of receiving humanitarian benefit," the judge said. He said that there would no possibility that Kasab would change and that there was no choice but to give the death penalty. He observed that undue sympathy would do harm and leniency could not be shown.
Judge Tahiliyani also said this was a case of "exceptional depravity" and rubbished claims that Kasab was subjective by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). He said Kasab had willingly joined the LeT and was under no pressure to do so.
Raavanan is almost prepared and for Vikram it's an added dream come true. “You know, I used to think one film each with Mani Ratnam and Shankar and I wouldn't mind retiring in that blaze of wonder,” Always a picture of sparkle, mention Ratnam and his Raavanan (Raavan in Hindi), and Vikram's energy level revs up further! He plays solid roles in both the Hindi and Tamil versions of the film — Raavanan is being dubbed in Telugu too. “Audiences in Andhra are hurdle to be floored by the subject,”
Amusingly, he isn't replicating the Tamil role in Hindi. “Here I'm Veera and in Hindi, Dev,” he smiles and on a serious note adds, “I hear that it's the first time in the world that an actor concurrently plays two completely different roles in two languages of the same film.”
Raavan isn't just Vikram's first project with Ratnam. It is also his first directly Hindi film. That he is being launched by the same apparent maker whom he yearned to work with sometime ago is a bonus! “You said it. Though Aparajith didn't do too well, it's been telecast over 17 times so far. Yet Raavan is my first Hindi film,” he explains.
After the Hindi audio launch in Mumbai, the attention he got from the girls in exacting was astonishing. “I mean, after all these years…” he laughs merrily.
Not many know that Vikram had earlier screen-tested for Mani Ratnam's Bombay. “But the wait has been worth it. Over the years, I've evolved as an actor. I feel in Raavan Mani has transcended his previous achievements.
Working with Ratnam has been an charming experience for Vikram. “He's open to your inputs. Raavanan And his energy is incredible. After a day's work, we would go over the scenes to be shot the next morning, costumes et al, before we dispersed. He would mull over them all night and be ready with the changes he wants.” ”
They've also shot in the remote areas of Kolkata and the rarely-visited terrains on the other side of Chalakudi. “Manikandan and Santhosh Sivan have captured them so beautifully on camera,” comments Vikram.
North Korea send his top nuclear envoy to Beijing on Tuesday to discuss restarting nuclear disarmament meeting, a day after pledging Pyongyang's commitment to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
Kim made the disarmament assurance during a summit Monday with a high-level envoy from Beijing at the start of a week of diplomacy intended to get the six-nation nuclear talks back on track. A high-level U.N. envoy also flew to Pyongyang on Tuesday for a four-day trip. North Korea walked away from the talks last year during a confrontation over its nuclear and missile programs. The disarmament progression includes the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.
However, has been reaching out to Washington, Seoul and Beijing in recent months, and has taken unsure steps toward discussing how to get the progression going again.
North Korea has made clear it wants U.N. sanctions lifted and a serenity treaty with Washington officially ending the 1950-1953 Korean War before it returns to the disarmament meeting. Pyongyang cites the U.S. military existence in South Korea as its main reason for building up its nuclear weapons program.
Washington says Pyongyang must come back to the talks first before any conversation about political and economic concessions.
Aid groups in Pakistan need nearly $538 million more than the next six months to help hundreds of thousands of people displaced by army clashes against the Taliban, the U.N. said in an international appeal Tuesday.
The appeal comes as much of the world's notice is focused on helping earthquake-devastated Haiti and as security ruins tenancy along Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan. A largely successful army offensive in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts has intended some 1.7 million people have returned home since being displaced last year, according to the U.N. Still, security in parts of the semiautonomous ancestral belt and other areas is weakening, leading to new internal refugees.
An estimated 1 million Pakistanis wait displaced. The majority of the refugees are staying with host families, but tens of thousands are in relief camps.
The U.N. came up with the $538 million outline after assessing the needs and goals of dozens of local and international aid agencies and the Pakistani administration. The biggest chunk of aid they requested, about $195 million, will pay for food for the displaced.
Last year, when the displacement crisis in Pakistan was at its peak, the U.N. and compassionate groups in the country managed to get $485 million of the $680 million they needed, the U.N. said.
The U.N. itself has not escaped the violence in Pakistan. Several of its employees have been killed or kidnapped over the past two years, leading it to suspend long-term progress work in Pakistan's northwest and shift some of its emigrant staff out of the country.
Avalanches on a mountain get ahead of north Kabul have killed at least 28 people, with another 1,500 trapped in their vehicles on snow-blocked roads.
The Afghan Defense Ministry released a statement saying another 70 people have been injured and transported to hospitals as the military and police continued rescue efforts to dig out those trapped in the snow.
The avalanches took place Monday subsequent heavy snows in the Salang Pass that links the Afghan capital with the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
In a statement, Karzai ordered the ministries of public works, defense and disaster control to "use all possible means to get the roads unblocked and rescue those trapped and stranded in the heavy snow."
About 100 Afghan soldiers were mobilized to join police and others in the rescue hard work, along with four helicopters, a number of ambulances and several bulldozers. Rescuers worked throughout the night to save more than 200 people.
Military helicopters were tumbling food packages to people jammed on snow-blocked roads. Earlier, Afghan reports said some 300 cars and buses were trapped on the mountain pass.
China has found another 170 more tons of infected milk powder in an emergency clearout that has made it increasingly clear many products revealed in the country's 2008 milk scandal were repackaged for sale as an alternative of destroyed.
The increasing number of cases in recent weeks challenges the government's previous promise to renovate its approach to food safety after hundreds of thousands of children in that scandal were dismayed by milk products infected with an industrial chemical. At least six children died. Contaminated milk products have recently emerged in China's largest city, Shanghai, and in the provinces of Shaanxi, Shandong, Guizhou, Liaoning, Jilin and Hebei.
In the most recent discovery, officials recalled more than 170 tons of milk powder contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine and closed two dairy companies in the northern district of Ningxia, the China Daily newspaper reported Monday.
The report said officials detained 72 tons of the powder but were still looking for the rest, which had been repackaged by the Ningxia Tiantian Dairy Co. Ltd. and sold to factories in the neighboring region of Inner Mongolia and the bustling southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
Instead, it issued guidelines on how to destroy the contaminated products, suggesting they be burned in incinerators or buried in landfills.
Costa Ricans have selected their first woman president as the ruling party candidate won in a landslide after confrontation to continue free market policies in Central America's most stable nation.
With most of the votes from Sunday's election counted, Laura Chinchilla held a 22-point lead over her closest rival. Her 47 percent share of the vote was well beyond the 40 percent required to avoid a run-off.
The closest contender, Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, got 25 percent of the votes. He and the other main opponent, Libertarian Otto Guevara, rapidly conceded defeat.
It was unclear, however, whether Chinchilla's National Liberation Party would gain a majority in congress.
